The EU’s rights and ticketing proposal explained

What’s this all about?

Two big hurdles for people wanting to choose the train for cross-border journeys are the difficulty to buy a ticket, and the lack of rights when things go wrong. At the moment finding and purchasing tickets for many journeys can be challenging, requiring visiting multiple disparate websites and platforms. On top of that, passenger rights – like rerouting in cases of a missed connection and delay compensation – are not necessarily guaranteed when your trip involves multiple operators.

The EU Commission, following Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s 2024 political guidelines, has now taken up the issue and released proposed legislation to fix both of these problems.

How did we get here?

The situation with tickets:

The ticketing landscape for cross-border trains is fractured. Many ticketing platforms will only show you travel options that they sell tickets for. That might mean only a slower or a more expensive option, or it might mean that it looks like that journey isn’t even possible. Other platforms will show you more options, but won’t necessarily be able to sell you all, or even any, of the tickets involved. Deutsche Bahn may show you a connection from Amsterdam to Hamburg but then refuse to sell you a ticket because one leg would require taking a Flixtrain.

Right now it’s entirely up to railway operators to decide whether and under what terms they offer tickets to resellers. This leaves passengers having to piece together their journey using multiple websites and platforms. That places the burden to find routes, compare tickets, and know whether it's possible to make a tight connection, on the passenger. Maybe fine for the seasoned expert, but often inaccessible to the casual traveller!

The situation with passenger rights:

The current rules for passenger rights in Europe are set by EU Regulation 2021/728, which in turn builds on previous legislation and policy. It covers a wide range of issues and contingencies, but a key component of the law is that for journeys that involve transferring from one train to another certain rights only apply if you have something called a through-ticket. A through-ticket (which is not quite the same as a “single ticket”) means that multiple tickets are treated as a single contract. So a ticket is what you show to get on the train, and a through-ticket is the agreement with the railway to go from A to B, including any transfers.

The law then further mandated that any combination of tickets with the same operator must be sold to you as a through-ticket. This was supposed to be how rights were guaranteed for journeys with multiple transfers. But, of course, that only works if all your transfers are with the same railway operator. So when it comes to cross-border trips, which often inevitably require multiple operators, many passenger rights still don’t apply. That lack of rights is what needs to be fixed.

What has the Commission proposed?

The Commission has tried to solve both problems together, primarily by introducing new rules for ticketing.

First, there is an obligation on all railway operators to make their tickets available to any ticketing platform that asks for resale on fair terms. They are further obligated to allow platforms to bundle those tickets along with others as a “single ticket” when all tickets are sold in a single transaction and minimum connection times are respected.

Then there are additional obligations on “indispensable” ticketing platforms, which is defined as those belonging to a railway operator with more than 50% market share of their domestic passenger rail. Think SNCF Connect or DB Navigator. These ticketing platforms must, when you search for a journey, display all possible tickets – including from competitors – for any trip that passes through their domestic territory. And, if the operators of any of those possible tickets requests it they must also offer them for sale. For the example above, that would mean DB Navigator will be required to sell you a ticket even if one leg is with Flixtrain.

Third, there is an obligation on all ticketing platforms that all combinations of tickets must be sold as a “single ticket”. What is a “single ticket”? It is a newly invented construct. Recall that a through-ticket means multiple tickets (what you show to get on the train) but with one contract of carriage. This new “single ticket” means multiple tickets purchased in a single transaction, regardless of the number of operators or contracts of carriage. And it would be the ticketing platforms’ responsibility to make sure that minimum connection times are respected so as to ensure that the whole journey is really possible.

Finally, in the regulations a “single ticket” replaces a through-ticket as the basis for granting rights, such as in the case of delays or missed connection. Liability would fall on the operator who caused the delay and the operator of the onward connection would be obliged to put you on the next available train.

Taken all together, this would make it possible to purchase a “single ticket” for many more journeys than what you can now get as through-tickets, since it introduces the possibility of combining tickets from multiple operators. But, rights would still be contingent on how and where your tickets were purchased.

You can find the full texts on the EU's website:

• Proposal on rail ticketing.
• Proposal on passenger rights.
• Which amends the current rules on passenger rights.

Would that fix the problem?

Partially. If it works, passengers would have an easier time finding and purchasing tickets for some journeys, and they would have guaranteed rights on more trips than they do now. But, it’s unnecessarily complicated and potentially difficult to implement, as it relies on operators and platforms forming commercial agreements. And even if executed perfectly, it would still leave many gaps, both when it comes to rights and to ticketing, since not all journeys would be available as a “single ticket”.

The passenger rights gap:

The Commission set out with good intentions but has missed the point. The real issue was never the availability of through-tickets. The real issue is guaranteeing passenger rights. Through-tickets only mattered because they were how rights were implemented up till now. Trying to extend passenger rights by extending the concept of through-tickets – by inventing “single tickets” – to cover the cases currently missing might seem reasonable. But, there are three shortcomings to this approach.

First, not all journeys will be available with rights. To start, this will only be of any use to passengers once the entire infrastructure and required coordination to sell “single tickets” are in place, which could take years. And even then, there is no guarantee that all journeys will be available as “single tickets”. The rules make some effort to ensure that most trips between neighbouring countries will be covered. But beyond that, you have to hope that there is a ticketing platform that happens to sell all of the tickets you need. That’s why passengers’ rights shouldn’t be dependent on how the tickets are sold.

Second, even journeys that can be made with rights may come with extra hassle and a price premium. Whether passengers who rely on travel passes, discount cards, or other similar schemes for their domestic travel will have a way to combine those with their onward connection as a “single ticket” is still unclear. They run the danger of suddenly having the extra burden of purchasing an additional ticket if they want to be able to travel with full rights. Similarly, passengers wouldn’t be able to take advantage of special deals or service offerings without losing access to their rights.

And lastly, it robs passengers of flexibility. For travellers who sit down and plan their whole itinerary at once this approach might be fine. But it won’t cover those who want to piece together their journey themselves because they need the flexibility of not locking in their whole trip at once. For example, mismatched booking horizons might make it necessary to book a spot on a high demand train before tickets for other legs of the journey are available. The legislation tries to address this, but our rights should not be contingent on that succeeding, especially since there is good reason to be sceptical that it will.

The end result is that this would leave passengers who either can’t or don’t want to buy their tickets all in one go from the same platform out in the cold without rights. It would create a situation where rights that are guaranteed domestically suddenly come with extra conditions, and likely a price premium, when crossing borders. That’s not how the EU is supposed to work.

Somewhat better ticketing:

On its own, this does address many of the issues with ticketing. The obligation on railways to offer their inventory to resellers under fair terms is exactly what we asked for. The extra obligations on “indispensable” platforms might be nice, but we don’t think they are necessary. That seems to be more about resolving issues between big incumbent railways and new entrant companies. Improving the ticketing experience for passengers is very important, and these proposed rules will do that. But, the more fundamental issue is that attempting to ensure the ability to purchase any and all journeys in a single transaction from a single platform – which this regulation tries, but fails, to do – only matters if a passenger’s rights are dependent on how they bought their tickets. Without that, the reform could have focused on creating a fair playing field for ticketing platforms. Instead we have some good, and some unwieldy and unworkable complications.

What would be better?

Focusing on through-tickets or the newly created “single ticket” misses the point. That only mattered because of how the current law was written. What actually matters are the rights afforded to passengers. These should be guaranteed no matter how many operators are involved or how you bought your tickets.

The simplest, most direct way, of guaranteeing those is for full rights to apply to any journey as long as all transfers respect minimum connection times, regardless of the number or nature of the tickets and transactions. Minimum connection times are set neutrally and made publicly available - the EU has already taken care of that (in regulation EU 2026/253). As a passenger this is how you would most naturally expect it to work. If you have arrived late and missed your connection the operator or station manager on the spot should help put you on the next best train, or arrange a hotel for the night as appropriate.

Since our proposal decouples rights from how and where tickets are purchased, it would simplify the ticketing reform as well. All that is needed is the obligation on all railway undertakings to make their full inventory available for resale under fair terms. This is enough to allow ticketing platforms to fill the current need. Further mandates on incumbent platforms might be nice, but aren’t necessary to make the whole thing work.

From the perspective of a passenger who goes online and buys all of their tickets at once from a single source our proposal will put them in the same place as the Commission’s. The ticketing platform would make sure all minimum connection times are respected. But you would get there with a much simpler regulatory regime for both railway operators and ticketing platforms. And, for the many inevitable cases where it isn’t possible or desirable to buy tickets that way – because no platform offers all of the ticket, you want to use a discount, or just need flexibility – you would still have the same rights as everyone else.

We have covered all of this in more detail in our policy paper.

Would that even work? Don’t railways need more control over ticketing? What if they don’t cooperate?

We know it can work because it already does! Railways operators already do this. Most have voluntary agreements (e.g. HOTNAT and AJC) that work exactly like this. They don’t rely on how or where you bought your ticket, but just on showing that you missed a connection you would have otherwise made. We just want those rights to be expanded and backed by law.

Either way railway operators will need to cooperate and coordinate. The only difference is whether they need to do that in advance and for every single ticket sold, or after the fact and only in case of disruptions and delays. We know they are capable of this because many do – in a limited and volunteer fashion – with the AJC. A system for them to reclaim compensation from each other is less technically complex than what is needed to turn every combination of tickets into a “single ticket”. From the passenger’s perspective, they should never need to know any of this. Just get put on the next train / in a hotel.

What happens now?

This is only the beginning of the legislative process. The Commission has made a proposal and now it will be discussed by the parliament and council. There is still lots of room for change and improvement. We are going to make sure that the politicians in Brussels hear from us, the passengers, at every step of the way. For the moment, when measured against the proposals in our policy paper here is where we stand: